Miscellaneous
In theory, urban planners should be considering land use, transportation, housing, and the overall usefulness of public space as they make decisions for the 55% of the global population who live in cities. In practice, urban planners are not considering the city’s residents as they continue to allow developers to build up, but rather it is “the image that has to be planned” says Dr. Mihalis Kavaratzis, an Associate Professor of Marketing at the School of Business, University of Leicester. With global travel coming to a practical freeze, the model of quick and large financial returns that building for tourists enabled in our cities has rapidly become an unsustainable model of urban development, even for the most ardent capitalists. Join us as we consider how the pandemic is forcing urban planners to reconsider the model of city branding and building for tourists and instead centre residents’ long-time concerns of livable cities.